Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron Storm
by em.sipin
Summary: On the closing months of the One Year War, a unit of RGM-78A Gundams, mobile suits derived from the titular RX-78 Gundam but was passed over for the GMs when it came to mass production, fought as the centerpiece of the war's most pivotal battle. These are the stories of the machines and the brave men that piloted it. Outnumbered but never outgunned, they fought in an Iron Storm!


**CHAPTER I**

Ensign Erard Ausburne sat in his mobile suit as it whirred to life. He felt the slight vibrations as its fusion reactor engine warmed up. He looked at his console and saw the flickering green lights telling him that all the systems in his suit are running optimal.

"Two minutes before drop" a voice from his helmet earphone said.

Ausburne moved the arms of his kneeling mobile suit to grab the handle bar on the ceiling of the Medea's cramped cargo hold, standing up as it pulls the handle bar. It stood up last in a line of three mobile suits. All RGM-78As.

The RGM-78s, like their RGM-79 GM cousins, are an offshoot of the Earth Federation's Project V, a program aimed at developing and building Federation mobile suits and breaking Zeon's lead on mobile suit technologies. While successful in creating the titular RX-78 Gundam which has outperformed all known Zeon models and has far exceeded its creator's expectations, Federation weapons manufacturers deems the mobile suit too costly and complex for mass production.

To this end, two military-industrial conglomerate, the Moon-based Anaheim Electronics, and the Earth-Based Corwen-Williams Semiconductors1, entered a bid with the Federation to simplify and mass produce the Project V designs, particularly the RX-78 Gundam.

While Anaheim's design is closely patterned after the original Project V template, Corwen-Williams created a mobile suit using a heavily-modified engine reverse-engineered from a Zaku captured early in the war. Corwen-Williams' engine has fewer parts, higher mechanical reliability, and lower operating cost than the engine used on Anaheim's GM, but this came at the expense of lower engine performance. In order to negate its engine's lower overall power output, Corwen-Williams' design incorporated the use of magnetic coated limb joints2, drastically increasing its mobile suit's limb reaction time, improving weapons aim accuracy, and increasing its ground walking and running speed.

Although competitive in all respects with Anaheim's GM, Corwen-Williams' RGM-78 design has been shot down by the leadership of the Earth Federation, this is in part due to its inability to use beam weaponry which the Gundam had successfully wielded in combat against Zeon's mobile weapons and warships, and, politically, the Zeonphobic leadership of the Earth Federation is against the idea of having its own mobile suit force run on Zeon-designed engines.

"Thirty seconds before drop. Unfastening restraints" the Medea's pilot said.

The door of the Medea's cargo bay slowly swung open. The eye sensor of Ensign Ausburne's mobile suit became temporarily blinded as the bright blue light of the Earth's sky permeated the interior of the cargo bay.

"Begin combat jump in three… two… one… Lieutenant Jason Meridew, GUNDAM UNIT ONE JUMPING at angels four point two…" Ausburne heard his platoon leader on radio.

As the first mobile suit cleared the Medea, Ausburne felt the slight nudge as the cargo plane suddenly became lighter.

"Ensign Nikolaus Hintermeister, GUNDAM UNIT TWO JUMPING…"

"Gundam unit three you are cleared for jump, good hunting" the pilot said on the intercom

Ausburne's mobile suit stood on the edge of the Medeas cargo bay, he checked his console if anything might warrant a jump abort, he saw a blinking red light telling him that there is a problem in his main thrusters' fuel-line.

"OPERATIONS… I'm reading a fuel-line pressure problem here, should I abort? OUT" he said over the platoon's radio channel

"NEGATIVE unit three, all our readings here on ground are normal. The sensors are off in calibration. Continue on your test… OUT" someone responded

"Ensign Erard Ausburne, GUNDAM UNIT THREE JUMPING…"

Ausburne suddenly felt himself falling to the ground as he cleared the Medea transport and into the open sky. He could see the two gray Gundams below him. Streaks of missiles suddenly appeared from the ground. The Gundams maneuvered mid-air to avoid the volley of missiles heading towards them. It missed them and it passed.

Instinctively, Ausburne tracked the origin of the missiles. Using his rifle's high-power scope, he saw an olive drabbed Zaku on the streak's end, running as it tossed its bazooka to the ground. It started to fire its machine gun but because of the extreme range it missed its mark and its tracer arced wildly above Ausburne's suit.

Other Zakus began to converge on the Gundam platoon's supposed drop zone, firing their machine guns as they run. There are four of them, all Zaku-IIFs, against three RGM-78A Gundams.

Ausburne aimed his long rifle3 at the torso of the nearest Zaku, he made minute adjustments to his aim to compensate for his drop. He squeezed the trigger, and two seconds later a bright splotch of red paint exploded on the Zaku's torso. He aimed toward another Zaku not far behind the first one he just hit but he missed this time.

The three remaining Zakus suddenly realized that they are under fire and began to drop smoke grenades on the ground. Saturating the Gundam platoon's DZ with thick white smoke. At this point, Gundams unit one and two began to fire their thrusters in order to decelerate their mobile suit's fall.

Ausburne saw a moving silhouette within the smoke laid by the Zakus and decided to try his chances with it by firing another round. He watched as his tracer went through the thick puff. He couldn't see a damn thing so he decided to follow through his shot when he heard his altimeter4 beeped, warning him that it is now time to fire his thrusters.

He fired his thrusters and felt the jolt caused by the sudden deceleration then a bright red warning displaying the words "WARNING: INSUFFICIENT MAIN FUEL LINE PRESSURE DETECTED" flashed on his main view screen while successive beeping sounds followed simultaneously. The thrusters suddenly ceased firing and is shutting down.

With quick thinking, he tried to restart the thrusters by manually overriding the thruster controls but it won't work. He thought that the recoil of his long rifle has something to do with this.

It's no secret that metals become brittle after being subjected to extreme low temperatures and that's what happened to his cryogenically cooled main thruster fuel line. The excessive recoil of his suit's long rifle caused the already brittle fuel line to crack and shatter.

Without the main thruster to break his fall, his only option is to divert the remaining thrust output to his suit's feet thrusters and deploy its emergency parachute. He initially disliked the idea because the parachute would present a large target to the Zakus below making him an easy picking but he has no choice and this he did.

The other Gundams reached ground first and has begun to blindly engage the Zakus within the thick smoke on the ground. Lieutenant Meridew hit a Zaku with his machine gun as it charge through him in close-quarters.

Ausburne's Gundam is nearing the ground in a dangerously fast free-fall. There is simply very little time left for his parachute to build up the necessary drag required to slow down his descent.

He manually removed the thrust governors on his Gundam's feet thrusters and pushed it all the way past its normal operating limits. As his mobile suit touched the ground, its whole right leg assembly collapsed knocking his Gundam to the ground in a cloud of dust.

Ausburne tried to motion his mobile suit to stand up but it won't. The least that he can do is to put his Gundam on a sitting position, in this way he could still fight the Zakus and complete the test mission.

A lone Zaku took notice of the damaged Gundam lying immobile in the middle of the test range. He thought of it as an easy picking and decided to charge the helpless mobile suit with guns blazing.

Ausburne saw the charging Zaku from the corner of his eye through his main view screen, he has decided that he is not going down without a fight and aimed his long rifle towards it. He looked down through its high-powered scope but all he can see is a blur – the shock of the drop broke his rifle's sensitive long-range optics.

He used his suit's eye sensor to aim and shoot at the charging Zaku but all of his shots went wide and missed because his suit's eye sensors were not calibrated to fire without the high-powered scope. The Zaku momentarily stopped its charge and threw a grenade towards the sitting Gundam, and took cover in a nearby depression.

Ensign Hintermeister's Gundam suddenly appeared to save his platoon mate, he jumped the Zaku in cover, firing his machine gun as he went, splotching it with bright crimson paint on its head and torso. By this time the grenade that the Zaku had thrown to Ausburne before Hintermeister got him exploded, spraying red paint all over Ausburne's Gundam.

The simulator computer quickly shut-downed Ausburne's mobile suit. It's over, a grenade from a Zaku got him because his damaged Gundam won't move. He opened his torso hatch and went down to the ground, curiously eyeing the extent of the damage on his mobile suit's right leg.

Though the area is still sheathed under a blanket of thick smoke, he can hear the battle roaring between the sole remaining Zaku of the aggressor mobile suit team and his platoon mates in the distance. The RGM-78As are superior in all aspects against a Zaku II so Ausburne knew from the start that the fight is a one-sided affair, but that is not the point, the test is about the ability of the new mobile suits to be dropped into battle using existing Federation air assets such as the Medea cargo planes and to this end the mobile suits had performed almost flawlessly except for the mishap on Ausburne's Gundam.

Ausburne looked up to the face of his mobile suit. Unlike the RGM-79 GM which has a simplified head unit with a large visor for its eye, the RGM-78 retained the Gundam looks of its RX-78 namesake though it doesn't sport the V-shaped antennae and it features a less ornate "mouth" and "chin" assembly.

The fallen Gundam's green eyes looks as if it is staring at Ausburne. He thought that the Gundam looks hauntingly human for a piece of machine.

He can hear the chatter about the ongoing battle on his headphones. The remaining Zaku is apparently giving the Gundams a hard time by shooting and scooting then hiding within the thick smoke, then the smoke suddenly cleared and the Zaku lost its cover and was quickly put down by Lieutenant Meridew's merciless machine gun fire. The battle was over, it was only eight minutes and thirty-three seconds after the first Gundam jumped off the Medea cargo plane.

Ausburne drew a flare gun from his leg holster, he held it high and fired it. A recovery team saw his flare and immediately went over his location to pick him up and his damaged mobile suit.

Back at his base, Ensign Ausburne, along with the other pilots from his platoon were handed their new Mission Orders from Jaburo Headquarters. They opened it and immediately scanned its content.

It reads that their unit, the 6th Mobile Suit Testing and Evaluation Team and the 8th Mobile Suit Aggressor Team, the team that they have just fought in today's test, are being reorganize into the 26th Mobile Suit Team. Interestingly, the mission order also reads about their immediate deployment to the Eastern European Theater of Operations for immediate combat operations against Zeon forces in the region in participation with the upcoming Federation offensive, OPERATION ODESSA.

FOOTNOTES

1. Cowen-Williams Semiconductors was originally a farming-tractor company base on Wales, in the United Kingdoms. In UC 0046 and 0048, it merged with Zara Defence Systems and Westbank Semiconductors respectively in a buyout. It went on to create and manufacture the Type-60 and the later Type-61 tanks for the Earth Federation in the UC 0060s. After the One Year War, the company went bankrupt over Anaheim Electronics' monopoly of the Mobile Suit market, it was bought by the Buch Concern and was reorganized as a Buch Concern subdivision known as the Buch Aerodynamics.

2. The Magnetic Coating Technique was first innovated by Cowen-Williams Semiconductors on its farming-tractor lines. It was originally used on the flywheels of its heavy-duty tractor models. The process is patented and was used exclusively by Cowen-Williams Semiconductors for years. During the One Year War, Anaheim-backed lobbyists in the Earth Federation Council successfully moved the patent to the public-domain for free under the auspice of war.

3. The Long Rifle is a Cowen-Williams creation derived from a reverse-engineered Zaku Machine Gun. Notable changes includes a longer and wider barrel in order to accommodate standard EF 155mm tank rounds (used by the Type-61 tanks) including APFSDS, HEAT, or HE rounds, addition of high-powered scope with adaptive optics, semi-automatic operation, and pneumatic shock absorbers on the stock.

4. An Altimeter is a navigation instrument used in determining an object's height above the ground.


End file.
